FEARGAL QUINN - Profile
Feargal Quinn - 1960 Feargal Quinn started a small shop in Dundalk with just eight colleagues. The first Dublin shop at Finglas came in 1965, and for the next 20 years we concentrated on becoming a major player in the Dublin area. In recent years they have expanded into eight more counties and before long they hope to be in most urban centres across the nation. They have 21 shops and the team is over 5,000.
From the start Superquinn honed in on two big things - food and customer service. The focus on customer service brought playhouses for customers' children, feed-back groups where we listen to customers, and a host of other innovations for which in time we became famous all over the retailing world. We were first in Europe with a technology-based loyalty scheme, SuperClub, technology we've sold to companies in other countries. We're partners in an online shopping venture Buy4now.
Fergal Quinn has also wrote a book about his business philosophy, "Crowning the Customer", which has sold like Superquinn sausages in several countries. In 1993 Fergal Quinn was elected to the Seanead as an independent member in the National University of Ireland constituency. Senator Quinn believes passionately in the Seanad's role, and gives a lot of time to his duties there. He was re-elected in 1997 and 2002 when He topped the poll.
In 1979 the Government asked him to be chairman of what later became An Post, and He spent 10 years helping to modernise that service and launch the National Lottery, He is Chairman of the new Leaving Certificate Applied committee. Senator Quinn is a committed European and strongly globalist in his thinking. My retailing connections allow me be an ambassador for the Irish food industry, which he believe has much untapped potential, he is an international board member of the US Food Marketing Institute, a former president of the global Food Business Forum, and am current president of the EU-wide lobbying group Euro commerce.
In 2006 I was appointed an Adjunct Professor in Marketing at NUI Galway.
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